Create a Visio organization chart

An organization chart (org chart) is a diagram of a reporting hierarchy that is commonly used to show relationships among employees, titles, and groups.

Org charts can range from simple diagrams, as in the following illustration, to large and complex diagrams that are based on information from an external data source. The shapes in your org chart can display basic information such as name and title, or details such as department and cost center. You can even add pictures to the org chart shapes.

Automatically create an organization chart by using an existing data source

This method is best if the information that you want to include in your org chart is already in a document such as a Microsoft Office Excel worksheet or a Microsoft Exchange Server directory.

Make sure your table or worksheet contains columns for employee names, unique IDs, and who reports to whom.

Note: You can name the columns whatever you want. When you run the Organization Chart Wizard, you can identify which columns (or field names) contain the name, ID, and report-to.

Employee name The way that employee names appear in this field is the way that they appear on the organization chart shapes.

Unique identifier If each name is not unique, include a column with a unique identifier, such as an employee ID number, for each employee.

Whom the employee reports to This field must contain each manager's unique identifier, whether that identifier is a name or an ID number. For the employee at the top of the organization chart, leave this field blank.

On the File menu, point to New, point to Business, and then click Organization Chart Wizard.

On the first page of the wizard, select Information that's already stored in a file or database.

Click Next, and follow the remaining steps of the wizard.

Note: Specific help is available for most wizard pages. To access Help, press F1 or click the Help button.

Show teams by using the Team Frame or dotted lines

After you create an org chart, you can rearrange the information to reflect virtual team relationships. Move related shapes near each other, and then add dotted-line connectors to show secondary reporting structures, or use the Team Frame shape to highlight a virtual team. The dotted-line report behaves like an ordinary connector. The Team Frame is basically a modified rectangle shape that you can use to visually group and name teams.

Update generated organization charts

To reflect changes in the structure of an organization, you must update the org chart manually or generate a new chart. If you generate a new chart, no customizations that were made to the earlier chart are included in the new chart. If themes or photos were added to shapes, they must be added again to make the charts look similar.

If the shapes are linked to data, the data is updated normally when you run Refresh Data, but only inside existing shapes. Refreshing the data does not add or remove shapes.